At nine, to the dot, lights were out. It was pitch black in our room. Somewhere outside one feeble standing light flickered, but inside, nothing doing.
Remember, these hammocks are about seven feet above ground—say, the fun started right there. How to get up in them was some problem. Each man thought of a way of doing it, and, in the first rush, one or two made it, but the rest of us only got a leg up and swung there before dropping back to earth.
Everyone was hollering suggestions and trying to get a grip on the blamed things. It wouldn't have been so hard if the hammocks hadn't moved—but they almost acted as though they had sense—hanged if they didn't. They'd bob this way and that, and the moment you got up—well——
After three or four attempts I made it. I got in all right, but, before I could settle down, over it turned with me—spilling out everything I owned, me included. I scrambled around picking up what I could in the dark, and what I said wouldn't be passed by the Board of Censors.
I piled the things in again and crawled back—pretty cautious this time. I rolled up my clothes for a pillow and lay on my back, gripping both sides of my little old bed. That's the way I slept—or rather didn't sleep. All through the night there were thump-thumps, as someone fell out and hit the deck.
When I heard reveille next morning I was so stiff I could scarcely move a muscle. I wasn't the only one though. We looked at each other and wondered if ever under the blue sky we would get the hang of sleeping in something that turned over every time you hitched a bit.
We cleaned up the quarters and spread our blankets and mattresses to air. It was bitter cold. We huddled close to the steam pipes and certainly tackled the chow for all it was worth when it appeared about six A. M.
A sniff of "chow."
After breakfast we lashed our hammocks, and I told mine a thing or two as I tied it up. Then we listened to the C.P.O. giving us our first talk on regulations. We wondered if we'd ever remember half the things he was telling us.